


Existence

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [188]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Blood, Childbirth, Dana Scully's year-long Pregnancy, F/M, MSR, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-07-25 03:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16189514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	1. Chapter 1

_“How is she?”_  
_“She’s inside. She needs to get to the hospital.”_

He has spent an entire day cursing himself for sending her away, for thinking that would protect her -- protect their son -- when all it’s done is put them in even more danger. Cursing the unfathomable _hubris_ of believing he could outsmart this being with the Billy Miles mask, and god only knows how many others like him, simply by “hiding” her in the middle of nowhere. As if hiding her was ever going to be possible. She’s got a goddamned beacon implanted in the back of her neck, but he was too blinded by his own panic to factor that in. (So stupidly blinded by it that he put his trust in Alex Motherfucking Krycek, of all people. What in the hell was he _thinking_?)

And now, after all of the hours spent frantically trying to get to her side, sudden terror nails his feet to the floor, not three steps into the room. Blood. The smell of it hits him, knocks the air from his lungs. His rational mind screams at him to _Go to her, what the hell is wrong with you, go!_ But he can’t move. Can’t breathe. He thought he was past this, thought he was getting better, but no, that unmistakable copper tang assails him and he is instantly back on that ship, stripped and restrained and terrified.

If there was one constant during those months of torture, it was the smell of blood and burning. Pain came and went, consciousness came and went, but even his dreams were permeated by that sick stench. When they weren’t cutting him open, they were doing it to the others. As long as he lives, he will never forget the sound of Teresa Hoese’s screams… 

“We need to get her out of here.” He nearly jumps out of his skin as Agent Reyes shoulders past him. “You carry her to the helicopter, and I’ll be right behind you with the baby.”

“No, don’… don’ let them take ‘im,” Scully slurs, her voice weak and barely audible. She’s curled on her side, holding something against her chest.

“It’s okay, Dana,” Reyes says gently, squatting down beside her. “Mulder’s here. We’re going to get you to the hospital.”

“Mulder?” Wide-eyed, she tries to lift her head to look for him, and finally, finally, that snaps him back into motion. 

As if breaking an invisible tether, he stumbles forward, closing the distance between them in a few clumsy steps. “Yeah. I’m here. I’m right here.” Now that he looks, really looks, he can see the source of the blood smell, and his stomach flips. “What happened? Is the baby…?”

“He’s okay, but the cord detached with the placenta still inside,” Reyes says tightly, trying to ease the bundle from Scully’s arms. “I don't know a lot about childbirth, but I know that's not good.”

Weak as she seems, Scully is not giving the baby over to Reyes easily. “No, he needs to… needs t’keep…” she mumbles.

“Nursing stimulates the release of oxytocin,” Mulder says quietly. “If she’s hemorrhaging, that will help the blood vessels close up.”

Reyes looks over at him with eyebrows raised, and Mulder shrugs one shoulder; he may not be a medical doctor, but damn if he didn’t read that natural childbirth book on Scully’s shelf cover to cover a week or two ago.

He brushes a lock of sweat-damp hair back from Scully’s cheek. “We’ll get him back to you in the chopper. But first we’ve got to get you there, okay?”

“Don’ le-them take him,” she says again, even weaker than before. Mulder swallows down the cold fear because he _will not_ let it take hold of him again. He needs to keep it together. For her. He is not going to let her down.

“I won’t let that happen,” he promises, at the same time Reyes says, “They’re all gone.” 

“Whatever they came for,” she continues, “whatever they thought they’d find, it looks like taking him wasn’t the plan. Or if it was, then for whatever reason, they changed their minds.”

Mulder cannot afford to let himself dwell on the fact that all of those people, all of those cars he passed, were all the very people he went to such absurd measures to protect her from. And they found her anyway. They could have taken her, taken the baby, harmed or killed them both, but they didn’t. They didn’t, and now she’s bleeding out on a sagging daybed in a ramshackle building in the middle of fucking nowhere, and that’s entirely on _him_.

But there isn’t time for his guilt and self-flagellation. He needs to jump straight to atonement, and that starts with not letting his error in judgment become a fatal one.

“Come on, Scully. Let’s get you both out of here.” 

At his gentle touch on her wrist, she relents and lets him guide her arm down from around the baby. His heart stutters as he takes his first _real_ look at his son, draped in a thin blanket and nursing with one tiny fist resting by his face. What was for weeks this hypothetical and almost imaginary thing, now exists in the world for real, here, right in front of him. He doesn’t have a word for the feeling that flares in his chest, some mixture of awe and dread and pride and fear and wonder.

The baby -- Mulder realizes with some measure of shame that he never did get around to asking Scully if she had a name picked out -- makes a little cry of protest when Reyes eases him off Scully’s breast and wraps him more thoroughly in the blanket. As soon as Reyes stands up with the baby in her arms, Mulder pulls Scully’s shirt back down to cover her and scoops her up, quilt and all. The soaked quilt probably weighs almost as much as she does, but he pushes the implications of that fact out of his mind and walks toward the door as quickly as he dares, Reyes right on his heels.

Outside, the helicopter rotors are startlingly loud, but he can still hear the baby’s cries behind him. “It’s okay,” he says to Scully, almost as much to reassure himself as to reassure her. “He’s right behind us. We’ll get him back to you in just a minute.”

If she says anything in response, he can’t hear it, and he moves just a little bit faster. He’s breathing hard by the time they make it to the chopper, and he’s grateful when Reyes reaches past him to open the doors. 

“You gotta get us to the hospital!” he yells over the engine noise.

“Hospital? You never said anything about--”

“I didn't know, and there's no time!” Deep down, of course he had always known there was a possibility he wouldn't get to Scully before something terrible had happened, but without the authority of a badge or the direct coordinates of her location, the best he’d been able to do was throw money at a charter company and hope for the best. “Look, if we have to wait for a medevac, she might not make it, and I’m not gonna let that happen!”

Scully is terrifyingly limp in his arms as he maneuvers them both inside, and for several heart-stopping moments, he cannot find a pulse. But no, there it is under his shaky fingers, and her chest rises and falls shallowly beneath his palm. He gathers her more tightly to him, making room for Reyes on the bench seat. Still cradling the baby with one arm, she slams the doors shut with the other and then leans forward.

“Special agent Monica Reyes, FBI. I need you to get on the radio with the nearest hospital and tell them we’re en route with an officer down. Can you do that?”

“Technically, but--”

“Good. Let’s go.”

***

Monica Reyes hasn’t slept in two days.

The night they got to Democrat Hot Springs, she and Dana cleared away just enough dust and cobwebs to manage a fitful few hours of sleep. Even exhausted from the drive, Monica’s whole body was on high alert, every creak of the old building or rustle of the leaves outside jolting her back awake. The couple of days since then have not exactly been restful.

Fear, however, is a powerful stimulant, and the interior of the helicopter is saturated with it. She is barely keeping her own in check, but the pilot’s is palpable, and Mulder’s is nearly overwhelming, rolling off of him in waves. Sometimes the energies and vibrations she feels are subtle, like a radio signal she’s barely within range to receive; this is not one of those times. She will crash hard when all of this is over, but for the moment, between the fear and the newborn baby crying in her arms and Dana’s life hanging in the balance, Monica is in no danger of falling asleep. 

The baby. She looks down at the red-faced, squirming little human in her arms and shakes her head, with no small amount of awe. Helping bring him into the world may have been one of the most terrifying things she’s ever had to do, but never has that cliche about the miracle of life felt more valid. There is, no kidding, something miraculous about this child, above and beyond the mere act of creation or even the extraordinary circumstances of his birth. The sheer energy in him is unlike anything she’s ever seen, almost frightening in its intensity, though somehow not in its intent. She couldn’t say how, but she knows there is a capacity for profound healing contained within this tiny body.

There is no question in her mind that Dana needs him right now just as much as he needs her.

Turning toward Mulder, his fear hits her again, even though his face is a mask of deceptive neutrality. All of his attention is focused solely on Dana, as though he can keep the blood flowing through her veins by the force of sheer will alone. He looks up sharply as Monica reaches out to touch his arm, almost like he’d momentarily forgotten she was there. Carefully, she holds the squalling bundle out toward him, gesturing with her chin.

“He needs to be near her,” she yells over the din. “Take him.”

Mulder’s got one arm wrapped around Dana’s back, so the handoff is awkward, but they manage, with Monica helping to tuck the baby gently between his parents. He quiets almost right away, in a manner that feels like more than just raw instinct. Mulder’s face softens, some of the worry nudged aside by wonder.

“Hey,” he mouths, and Monica is torn between feeling like she’s intruding but also being completely unable to look away.

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but she has the sudden impression that there is something unspeakably powerful about the three of them together, something almost cosmic. 

Her stomach swoops as the helicopter banks hard to the left, and the pilot turns to shout over his shoulder at her. “Grab that headset hanging next to you and put it on!”

She does, and the engine noise is immediately dampened; her ears ring for half a second before the pilot’s voice cuts through, much clearer and louder than a moment ago. “The hospital in Blairsville doesn’t want to let me land at their heliport without more information. You need to tell me exactly what is going on and if this is really life-and-death enough for them to break protocol.”

She frowns. What part of “officer down” wasn’t clear? “This woman back here is a federal agent who gave birth less than an hour ago while in my protective custody. There were complications, and now she is hemorrhaging. Every second counts. Tell the hospital they can call Assistant Director Walter Skinner at the FBI to vouch for what I’m saying, but they _need_ to let us land.”

There’s a pause while he talks to the hospital on another channel. Then her headphones crackle, and he speaks again.

“If you’ll pardon the obvious question, what were you doing out in the middle of nowhere with a woman about to give birth?”

Given everything that happened, Billy Miles and the park ranger and all of the others finding them anyway, she can’t help wondering the same thing. Glancing sidelong at Mulder, she says, “Believe it or not, it seemed like our safest option, under the circumstances.”

“And whatever kept you from going to a hospital before, that’s not a problem now?”

She looks over again at the little family on the seat beside her and shakes her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Letting go of the mic button, she adds a murmured, “I sure hope not.”


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as Agent Reyes handed him the baby, time seemed to slow and stretch. Scully’s breathing got steadier, stronger. Mulder had his entire family in his arms, and despite the continued familiar undercurrent of fear, he felt oddly at peace, too. Felt _right_ , somehow.

But now they’re landing, and as Agent Reyes leans over to take the baby back, time speeds up again like a bad special effect.

Hospital workers in plastic smocks are there at the doors, yanking them open and yelling into the helicopter interior as the pilot powers down. He can’t make out individual words, only the urgency behind them. His heart pounds.

Now Scully’s on the gurney and they start to roll her into the building, and it feels like something physically tears inside him; he has had to choose between her and someone else before, but never like this. He looks helplessly at her, then at his son in Reyes’s arms, then back at her.

Agent Reyes chooses for him, handing him the baby, who has just begun to cry again. “I’ll go with her, Mulder. You take care of him.”

“I--” he starts to say, but she’s already jogging after Scully. 

“Are you the father?” someone asks, and he turns to see one of the women from the hospital looking up at him.

“Y-yeah,” he stammers, half his heart and three quarters of his attention still pulled toward the door that just closed behind Scully’s gurney. 

“Well, come on then. Let’s get you both inside.”

“Wait!” the helicopter pilot calls from behind him. “Look, buddy, I know you paid in advance, but we just flew an extra 40 miles, and… I mean, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask for some more--”

“Right, yeah, of course. Just, uh, send me a bill, okay? Whatever it is, I’ll… I’ll take care of it.” He cannot even begin to contemplate how much extra the charter company might charge him, but he also couldn’t possibly put a price on Scully’s life. 

The baby quiets as they walk, but Mulder's internal monologue of _Scully, Scully, Scully_ continues unabated. Once they get in the building, he’s ushered into a room where a small crowd of medical and administrative staff immediately start lobbing questions at him that he tries, and mostly fails, to answer. (Time of birth? Length of labor? Baby's _name_? He's almost surprised they don’t declare him an imposter and take the kid away.) They write “Baby Boy Mulder” on the form, but he makes them change it to “Baby Boy Scully,” stammering something about not being married. Someone asks if he wants to cut the cord, which is still mostly intact and tucked in among the blankets; he feels the blood drain from his face, manages to shake his head “no.” 

He watches warily as the baby is examined from head to toe, stomach tight with dread that they might find something wrong, abnormal, _inhuman_. After everything that has transpired over the past few days, what he saw in Parenti’s office, the things that Ms. Gill said, and even Krycek… Oh, he _wants_ to believe what Scully told him, about how this baby came to be, about the tests she’s had done and how everything so far has checked out.

It’s just that he knows all too well that wanting to believe only gets you halfway.

The knot in his stomach loosens fractionally when they prick the baby’s heel and he bleeds red. Of course, Billy Miles didn’t bleed green either, but this still seems like a good sign. The minutes crawl by -- he finds himself compulsively glancing at the clock on the wall about every fifteen seconds -- and though his worries about the baby slowly begin to ease, his worries about Scully do not. Shouldn’t he have heard something by now, about how she’s doing?

Worrying about Scully is like walking a path so familiar that his feet know the way, all of their own accord. He knows every turn, every landmark, has been here far, far too many times before. But though the path is one he knows by heart, that doesn’t make traversing it any easier.

He turns his head sharply at the sound of the door opening, feels his jaw clench at the somber expression on Agent Reyes’s face.

“She’s been taken to surgery,” she says without preamble, and he nods, tightly. Okay, surgery isn’t great, but it’s a damned sight better than _gone_. “They wouldn’t tell me much, but when you’re finished here, I’ll show you where we can sit and wait for her.”

Mulder looks to the small team surrounding his son, and the white-coated doctor offers a smile. “I’d say we’re just about wrapped up with this little one. He’s doing awfully well for someone who had such an… exciting entrance into the world.”

Reyes and Mulder share a quick “You don’t know the half of it” look before Mulder turns back toward the doctor. “That’s good to hear. So we can go?”

“Just as soon as Nurse Andrews gets back with a bottle and some bracelets for you and the baby, then yes. And if you’d like, we can take your son to the nursery for a while so you can--”

“No!” Reyes interrupts, with an intensity that startles even Mulder. With the attention of everyone in the room immediately on her, she raises her hands slightly. “Sorry. Just… this baby doesn’t leave our sight. For any reason.”

“Okay,” the doctor says slowly. “That’s fine. It was just an option, in case Mr. Mulder wanted to get some rest. I assure you, our nursery staff will take excellent care of him. There’s no need to worry.”

“I’m sure they would,” Mulder says. “But it won’t be necessary. I’ve got him.”

***

The chairs in the surgical waiting area are surprisingly comfortable, and Monica fights the urge to pull her feet up, curl her body into the cushions, and close her eyes. 

When they got upstairs, they were informed that Dana had made it through surgery without complication and been moved to recovery. It will still be a little while before they can see her, but for now, they can at least wait without worry. Mulder had seemed to physically deflate with relief at the news, all of the tension that had been coiled so tightly in and around him melting away almost from one breath to the next.

He sits beside her now, leaning back in the chair with the baby dozing on his chest, looking like he might also be struggling to stay awake.

“They’re like cats,” she says, nodding toward the baby. “You know, all warm and soft and sleepy. I can’t even tell you how many times I fell asleep studying in college because my roommate’s cat decided to take a nap on me.”

“I guess I wouldn’t know,” Mulder says through a yawn. “Never had a cat. Never had a baby before, either.” He looks down at the sleeping bundle on his chest and smiles. “This one is pretty warm and soft, though.”

“He’s amazing.” Mulder meets her eyes, and she leans forward, just a little bit, and lowers her voice to a near-whisper. “You feel it too, right? The energy in him?”

Worry flickers across Mulder’s face, and his eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s nothing bad,” she says quickly. “It’s just… well you’ve heard of auras, right? How everyone’s got one, a sort of manifestation of psychic energy, perceivable by some people as colors or vibrations?”

“Yeah,” he answers, warily.

“Well, it’s like that. I don’t see colors, per se, but I’m pretty sensitive to feeling… things. About people and places. And, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t been around a lot of babies, but… I’ve never felt anything quite like what I’m feeling from him. Just like… pure lifeforce radiating off of him. And I guess I thought, given your work and everything you’ve studied and investigated, you’d be sensitive to feeling it too.”

Inexplicably, Mulder chuckles, and she bristles for a moment before realizing he’s not laughing _at_ her. He’s relieved.

“You… thought I meant something different?”

He sighs now, still smiling, and shakes his head. “I think you know some of what I was afraid of. Some of what Scully was afraid of.”

She nods, a chill running through her as she remembers Billy Miles picking himself up after being apparently shot dead. Whatever those people were, whatever they wanted with Dana and the baby, she hopes the fact that they all left after the birth means that he’s not what they thought he was. Not what Mulder and Dana feared he might be. Oh, there is power in him -- of that she is still certain -- but she doesn’t believe it is something to fear.

“Ordinary human energy,” she clarifies. “But a lot of it.” Reaching a hand out, she holds it just above the sleeping baby’s back. “You really don’t feel that? At all?”

Mulder looks at her, thoughtfully. “Has Scully ever told you about her sister?”

Now it’s Monica’s turn to chuckle. “Just yesterday, in fact. I get the feeling she’s someone I would love to have known.”

“Yeah, I think you would’ve liked each other,” Mulder says, gazing off into the middle distance and clearly reliving some memory he doesn’t seem to want to share aloud.

A door opens at the end of the hallway, and they both look up. A nurse comes toward them, asking as she walks, “Is one of you an Agent Reyes?”

Monica stands up. “That’s me.”

“There’s an Agent Doggett on the phone for you at the nurse’s station.”

“Oh. Right, of course.” She can’t believe she forgot to call once everything had settled down. John must be worried sick. He’s probably been calling every hospital in northern Georgia, looking for them.

She follows the nurse back up the hallway and through the doors. When they reach the desk, another nurse hands her a phone.

“John, hi.”

“Damn it, Monica, I’ve been going crazy trying to get ahold of you! What happened, is Scully all right, did you--?”

“We’re fine,” she says, with a glance toward the nurses. They are both looking away, trying to give her as much privacy as possible, but the phone cord is too short for her to have this conversation anywhere but right at the desk. “Everyone’s fine. Mulder found us, and we were able to get to the hospital in time.”

“In time for Scully to have the baby?”

“No, that happened… where we were. But there were some complications, and… anyway, it’s a good thing he got to us when he did. Agent Scully might not be alive right now, otherwise.”

“And the baby?”

“He’s fine, too.” She smiles. “By all appearances, a healthy baby boy.”

“Thank God. That’s… that’s great news.” The relief in his voice is obvious. “And you? You’re okay, too?”

 _Nice of you to finally ask._ “Yes, John. I’m okay. I might sleep for a week when all of this is over, but… I’m just glad everyone is all right.”

“Me too.” She hears him let out a breath. “Listen, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done. A.D. Skinner, too. He, um… he and I have some things we’d like to discuss with you, when you get back.”

She wonders, briefly, about how she’s even going to get back to Democrat Hot Springs, since the car and her cell phone and who knows what else got left behind there.

“Okay. Well, I’ll let you know as soon as I have some idea when that will be. My cell got left behind in the rush, so if you need to reach me again, the hospital is probably your best bet.”

“That would explain why you didn’t answer any of the ninety-five times I called it,” John says.

“That, and we didn’t have any signal out where we were, anyway.” She remembers picking up her phone to call for an ambulance, then setting it down again in dismay at the “No Service” indicator. It felt like a miracle when she heard the helicopter only moments later. 

There is an awkward pause; John probably has a million more questions he’d like to ask, but he undoubtedly knows as well as she does that this is not the time for it. They break the silence at the same time.

“Well, I should let--”

“I should probably--”

She shakes her head, smiling again. “I’ll talk to you again soon.”

“Okay. Try to get some rest, if you can. And Monica?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. I knew I could count on you.”

_You knew I would come running from a thousand miles away, in the middle of the night, with no explanation, just because you asked me to._

There is so much more to unpack, there, but again, this is definitely not the time.

“You’re welcome,” she says instead. “Goodbye, John.”


	3. Chapter 3

It occurs to Mulder, when the nurse comes to tell Agent Reyes she has a phone call, that there’s someone he should probably call, too. He sits up slowly, eases the sleeping baby from his chest to the crook of his arm, and carefully stands. There’s a pay phone at the end of the hall, and he makes his way over to it, hoping there’s still money left on the phone card he hasn’t used in over a year.

It rings all the way through to the answering machine, but the recorded message cuts off abruptly with a breathless, “Hello?”

“Oh, uh, hi, Mrs. Scully,” he stammers, thrown. “I’m sorry to call at this hour, but I thought you’d want to know--”

“Fox?! Where’s Dana, is she all right? I haven’t been able to reach her, and her doctor hasn’t seen her, and nobody will tell me where she is or if she’s alive, or--”

“She’s okay,” he says quickly, cursing himself for not even thinking about how upset she would be when Scully disappeared without warning. “She’s okay, and the baby’s okay, and I’m sorry you were worried, but everything’s--”

“Worried?” Her voice cracks, and when she speaks again, it is with a near sob. “Do you have any idea what I have been through these past three days? How terrifying it is to… to not know where your _pregnant daughter_ is or if she’s even… if she…”

He looks at the floor, shame burning through him, as Mrs. Scully loses her composure on the other end of the line. Every hitching breath and muffled sob cuts like broken glass, and he bears them all, letting the impact of it hit him square in the chest.

He deserves this. All of it.

It doesn’t matter that he was trying to protect Scully, that he thought she would be safest if even _he_ didn’t know where she was going. It doesn’t even matter whether he was right or wrong about that. What matters is that he didn’t even consider Margaret Scully’s feelings, that she didn’t enter into the equation at all, as far as he was concerned. He owes her more than that. After everything that has happened, from the moment her daughter walked into his office eight years ago, he owes her so much more.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“You should be.” Her voice is thick, angry. “I know I’m supposed to tell you that it’s okay. I’m supposed to just quietly accept this life Dana has chosen, accept the dangers and the risks because _she_ has accepted them. But it is not okay! How many times, Fox? How many times is she going to disappear, or get sick, or have people trying to hurt her? How many times am I going to have to wonder where she is or if she’s ever coming home? Or if I’m going to have to bury her like we buried you?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“No. Of course you don’t. And to be honest, Fox, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

He has no answer to that. Mrs. Scully sighs into the receiver.

“Can you at least tell me where my daughter is now? And why you’re the one calling me instead of her?”

“She’s… resting,” he hedges, turning his gaze to the baby. He can’t help the soft smile that comes to his face, and a warmth blooms in his chest that has nothing to do with guilt or shame. “I was, um… I was calling to tell you that your grandson’s been born.”

She gasps. “Oh! Oh, but that’s… But I asked Dr. Speake to call me right away if Dana came to the hospital! I’ll be right there, just--”

“We’re not at Washington Memorial,” Mulder says quickly.

“You’re not? But… well, then where?”

He winces as he answers, “Blairsville, Georgia.”

“Georgia,” she breathes. “But that’s impossible. I don’t understand, Fox. She was supposed to be on maternity leave. No work, no travel, _certainly_ no flying--”

“This wasn’t about work.” _At least not directly._ “I thought… there was a chance someone wanted to hurt her, and I… I couldn’t let that happen.”

“So you took her to _Georgia?_ And couldn’t take five minutes to let me know she was going away?”

He squeezes his eyes closed. This is not how this phone call was supposed to go. He was supposed to deliver the happy news about the baby and reassure Mrs. Scully that everything was okay. Instead, here they are. And none of it is her fault. It is entirely his own shortsightedness that got them here.

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“I know you are, Fox. You’re always sorry. But I can’t think of a time that’s ever actually changed anything.”

He’s stunned into silence, the wind figuratively knocked right out of him. She’s not wrong, and it’s not as though he hasn’t told himself the same damned thing, any one of the billion times he’s wallowed in shame and self-flagellation. Somehow, though, it hits that much harder, coming from her.

“Please ask Dana to call me when she can,” she says after a bit. “I would appreciate someone letting me know when she is coming home. Goodbye, Fox.”

“I--”

But she’s already hung up.

***

Monica doesn’t see Mulder and the baby at first, when she returns to the waiting area, and wonders if they’ve been let in to see Dana. She starts to try and find someone to ask, but then she spots him at the end of the hall, baby in one arm, phone to his ear, shoulders hunched. He’s too far away to hear what he’s saying, but his posture alone speaks volumes. Whoever he’s talking to, it’s not going well.

Looking away, she goes back to the chair she was sitting in before and wearily lowers herself into it. _What I wouldn’t give for a cigarette right about now._ Of all the reasons to want to quit, it’s the inconvenience of the habit that’s always been the most powerful motivator. Yes, she should want to quit because it’s terrible for her, and it’s not as if that _isn’t_ a factor. It’s just… whenever she’s in a situation where she can’t stop for a smoke, it’s usually already stressful enough without throwing cravings into the mix. Being free of those cravings would be liberating, _has_ been liberating, each time she’s managed to “quit” in the past.

“Probably time to try again,” she mutters aloud, rubbing her forehead.

She looks up again at the sound of footsteps down the hall and sees Mulder coming back toward her, his face ashen. Before she can ask him what’s wrong, though, the door at the end of the hall opens, and a nurse walks toward them.

“Mr. Mulder? Ms. Reyes? I’m pleased to tell you that Ms. Scully is waking up. You can come see her if you’d like, but only for a few minutes. She still needs a lot of rest.”

“That’s wonderful news,” Monica says, standing.

She turns her head to glance at Mulder, but instead of the relief she expected to see and feel from him, his jaw muscle bulges, and an anxious energy is rolling off of him in waves. They follow the nurse together in silence, and it is not until the door opens to Dana’s room and they can see her for themselves that he relaxes. He practically floats the last few steps to her bedside, while Monica hangs back at the doorway. Though clearly exhausted, Dana immediately brightens at the sight of him and the baby, and though Monica can only see Mulder’s back, she has no doubt there is a matching smile on his face.

When Mulder leans down to kiss Dana on the forehead, their son cradled between them, Monica eases back into the hallway to give them some privacy. There will be time for her to talk to Dana later; for now, Monica is just so glad to see that she’s all right.

***

“You’re really here,” she croaks, her own voice sounding foreign to her ears. “I was afraid maybe I’d dreamed it.”

Mulder eases himself onto the edge of the bed, beside her hip. “I’m really here.”

He slowly places the sleeping baby, all wrapped in new blankets, on the bed next to her, and her eyes fill with tears. _He_ is still really here, too. They didn’t take him.

“Oh, Mulder, I was so scared…” she whispers, too choked up to say more than that.

“Shh,” he says, his fingertips grazing her forehead. “Everything’s okay. You’re safe, and he’s safe, and I’m not gonna let anything happen to either of you.”

A shadow flits across his expression; he has to know as well as she does that this isn’t a thing he can promise. There were just so many of them, and all like Billy Miles. If they’d wanted to hurt her, to take the baby, there wouldn’t have been a single thing Mulder or anyone else could have done to stop them.

She squeezes her eyes shut, shaking her head, and instantly she’s back in that room, Monica yelling at her to push, and all of them there, watching, waiting…

“Okay,” someone says, and she opens her eyes with a gasp as a hand touches her shoulder. Dimly, she realizes the ECG monitor is beeping like crazy, and the nurse has come to stand beside the bed, across from Mulder. “Take a deep breath, sugar. Easy does it. Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step outside and--”

“No,” Scully says, shaking her head again. “No, please… please let him stay. I just need… I need…”

She feels Mulder take her hand in his, lets the familiar slide of his thumb across her knuckles ground her. That simple gesture, just one of many in the compendium of physical shorthand they have developed over the years, conveys without words that he is here, with her, in this moment. It’s support and concern and love, all communicated silently but no less earnestly for it.

Tucked between them, his head resting against her upper arm and his body snugly nestled against her side, is their son. The miracle she never expected to have and was terrified she wouldn’t get to keep. It is still a little hard to believe that he is finally here, whole and healthy and human. She spent so many months afraid, despite the tests and all of the attempts to reassure herself that he was normal, and some part of her never really relaxed enough to truly believe that she could have this. For that matter, she still keeps thinking she is going to wake up to discover the last couple of months never happened, that Mulder is still dead and buried in North Carolina, lost to her forever. It hardly seems possible she could be granted two things so extraordinarily miraculous and be permitted to keep them both, but maybe… just maybe…

Gradually, her heart stops racing.

“All right.” The nurse gives a wary nod, then turns to Mulder. “Y’all can visit a little while longer, but then she needs to rest some more. I’ll come back when it’s time.” Looking back at Scully, she adds, “But if you need anything before then, just press that call button. Okay?”

“Thank you,” Scully says.

When they’re alone, Mulder brings her knuckles briefly to his lips, then releases her hand to let it rest on the baby. She watches for a while as the small chest rises and falls under her palm, and when she looks back up at Mulder’s face, she sees him gazing at her with such a look of wonder that she can’t help smiling back at him.

“The, uh, the doctors were asking me about his name,” he says softly. “I didn’t know what to tell them. I never, um… I never asked if you had one picked out or…”

Right. That.

When Mulder was missing, she put off a lot of things, hoping against hope that he would be returned and they would have a chance do those things together. When he was “dead,” she was really only existing day by day; even something as seemingly simple as thinking about potential baby names was more forward-looking than she could manage. Since he’s been back, things were so shaky at first, and then he didn’t even want to know the baby’s sex, and so it’s really only been in the last week or two that she’s felt like she could even consider bringing up the subject of names with him.

And somehow, because their lives are the way they are, she just never quite got around to it. That’s not to say she hasn’t thought about names _at all_ , but she is definitely nowhere near having chosen one for certain.

“No, I… I suppose I thought we’d have time to talk about it. Together. Then everything happened so fast in the last few days, and…” She shrugs, trying not to slip back into thinking too deeply about the last few days. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Me?” He looks surprised, like it never occurred to him he might have a say in this. “I don’t know. I was… gone… for so much of your pregnancy, and… I guess I just assumed you would’ve already had something in mind.”

“Nothing definite, no,” she says, shaking her head.

“Well, my father’s family had a tradition of always naming children after someone else. Of course, that’s how you end up saddled with a name like Fox, so I’m not sure I actually endorse the practice.”

She smiles. “So there’s another Fox Mulder somewhere in your family tree?”

“No, actually. But my grandmother’s maiden name was Fuchs, which is--”

“German for ‘fox,’” she says along with him, nodding in recognition.

“Yeah.” He chuckles. “Could’ve been worse, I guess.” Looking down, he reaches to touch the baby's cheek with one finger. “Still. Let's do this kid a favor and not name him after his old man, all right? I like him too much already to do that to him.”

“Mulder…”

“And not… not Sam,” he adds quietly. “There’s too much weight there, and I just… not Sam, okay?”

She reaches for his hand again, and he takes it, giving her fingers a little squeeze. “Okay.”

As legacy names go, there is one obvious answer. It’s one she thought about, briefly, when she was starting the IVF process over a year ago. One she could brush off as an homage to her father, if Mulder had decided he wanted nothing to do with anything past the sperm donation, but which would still (at least in her mind) acknowledge his contribution.

Of course, it might also be _too_ obvious a choice, which is enough to make her question whether it is the right one.

“I think,” he says after a while, “it should be your decision. And I also think there’s no need to rush and decide right now. Hang out with him for a few days, see what feels right.”

It’s not what she wanted -- the burden of making this decision all on her own -- but she’s suddenly too tired again to argue, and she supposes Mulder is right that there’s no rush. So she nods and covers a yawn with her free hand. As if on cue, there’s a light tap on the door, and the nurse comes back into the room, along with a doctor.

“How are you feeling, Ms. Scully?”

“I’m okay,” says through another yawn.

Mulder leans forward to press a kiss against her forehead. “You rest. The little man and I will be right outside.”

“Actually,” the doctor says, “we’re going to go ahead and move you out of recovery and over into the L&D wing. We’ll get you all set up in a family room together. How does that sound?”

Family. The word gives her a happy, swoopy feeling in her stomach, and from the way Mulder is beaming down at her, he must be feeling the same way. She squeezes his hand.

“That sounds great.”


End file.
